Tomorrow never came
by Just Slightly Obsessed
Summary: Marius chose Cosette over the revolution. Éponine didn't find out until it was too late. Now her world has been torn apart, and there's only one person to blame. Slightly AU, oneshot. T for swearing.


**First Les Mis fic - apologies for any OOC-ness. Based mostly on the film version. Slight AU - Marius chose to follow Cosette rather than fight; Éponine did not learn this until she was already at the barricades. If the situation is unclear, let me know and I'll edit. **

**Thanks to the ever patient u/2134264/She-Walks-With-Grace for betaing for me.  
**

* * *

Legs burning, face flushed with exertion, hair damp and flying around her face like a wild, filthy halo. She is running through the streets at night again. Her bare feet slap against the pavement, barely feeling the sharp stones which dig into the tough skin of her soles. She has suffered far worse than this sort of pain.

This is by no means the first time she has been chased through the back alleys of Paris, but it is the first time she has felt this way while doing so. Before it was fear that motivated her; fear of the men shouting or jeering behind her, fear of her father's belt or her mother's nails. Her pursuers were terrifying to her then. Now she would willingly exchange any corporeal danger for the desperation which urges her forwards now. Fear does not explain away the knot of tangled emotions tugging at her in all directions, refusing to unravel yet demanding to be noticed. She runs because she has no other choice.

In the weak, watery moonlight she can make out figures stirring in the shadows, staring up at her as she flies past them, disturbing them from what little slumber can be acquired on the streets. Her heart throbs with an ache for the face of the man whose eyes would be in flames over these people, whose voice would rise up in a heartfelt cry for justice, for _justice_, that these poor souls might be freed from oppression, that she might be freed from it… The feelings threaten to weigh her down; she cannot afford to halt. She keeps running, ignoring the pounding of her heart, the gasping of her lungs, the panic resounding in her head.

She rounds a corner, and the familiar walls of the Musain rise up before her eyes; best-loved by her of all the buildings in Paris, and even more so tonight. She does not allow herself the indulgence of relief, however, as she continues to race through the remnants of the shattered glass on the floor, driving herself forwards through the broken door. The stairs are nearly destroyed, but that would not have stopped him and it will certainly not stop her. She reaches up to grab the bannister, scrambling up over the splintered wood. There is so little left that she is forced to practically claw her way onto the second level, but she manages through sheer determination, sheer need. It is only once she has managed the ascent and clambered to her feet than she finally allows herself to stop, panting heavily, her eyes scanning what is left of the room she knows so well.

The walls remain intact. The same cannot be said of anything else. Every window is demolished, crystal shards littering the floor, glittering like diamonds in the light of the sole flickering candle. The wood beneath the upturned tables is riddled with bullet holes. Ominous red stains hang upon the walls like curtains, or lie speckled across the battered furniture like precious jewels. Even the air still feels thick with smoke and the stench of lingering fear.

Among the carnage a figure sits, his back turned, his head bent low towards the paper over which his hand glides smoothly. A large volume sits open on the table in front of him. The only sound is the scratching of his pen and the heaving of Éponine's lungs; the rest of the world seems to be stunned into an incredulous silence. Incredulous, not because this man is here – because this is where he should be, there is no question of that, that is why she came here in the first place – but because he looks so content, so tranquil, sitting among all that is left of those lives he lost, those lives _he _risked. The knot is tugged again from another part of her soul, and all she can feel now is an overpowering fury towards this man, this man who has the audacity to sit in his superficial perfection amid the nightmare he has created.

"I did not risk my life saving you to have you throw it away," she says quietly, her voice shaking with restrained anger.

The pen halts in its movements; she thinks he is going to speak, but the golden head merely inclines towards the book for a moment before the scratching continues. His callousness disgusts her; she moves forwards towards him, repeating her sentence with a more prominent hint of venom. If he hears her, he doesn't show it.

But then he never had. Not once had he shown the slightest recognition of her, not before the revolution, not during, not even afterwards, when her shoddy nursing had been the only thing keeping him from death. He had hardly been conscious for a day before he had vanished again, slipping away from their temporary hideout and vanishing into the dangerous darkness of post-barricade Paris, leaving her no choice but to search for him in the only place she imagined he could be.

And even now he continues to ignore her. She would never have cared before. She spared as few thoughts for him as he did for her. At this moment in time, however, he is the only person she has left to spare any thoughts for, and it is all his fault, and she will not let him pretend that nothing has happened.

"Enjolras." She is now directly behind him, and she can see the words he is scribbling. They mean nothing to her; nothing, they are not in French; nothing, they are probably not words she would understand; nothing, they are just words and people are dead. "_Enjolras_."

This time his apparent indifference makes her blood boil; in blind fury she wrenches the paper out from beneath his pen, ripping her nails into it and tearing it apart, flinging the pieces down on the floor. "Look at me, you heartless bastard!" Tears, hot and angry, are streaking down her cheeks by now; she does not care enough for his opinion of her to swipe them away. "Look at this place! Look at the mess you made! How can you- how can you _sit _here and pretend _nothing_ has happened?"

He remains motionless, his hand now frozen where it had been poised before. She does not want to look at him anymore, so she turns away with a sob of despair and abhorrence. Of all the men who had to live, of those beautiful, cheerful boys with their eyes full of hope and their hearts full of love, of those men who had sung together and laughed together, who had greeted Monsieur Marius with cheers and mocking but well-meant words, why had this monster been the only one to survive? Why had _she _chosen to save him? Had she thought, in a moment of hopeless naivety, that preserving their leader's life would keep their dream alive? Had she really believed that she was saving the one who was closest to the man she had adored for so long? Had she honestly hoped that if she let Enjolras live, Marius might be grateful to her? That he might come back to her?

_Stupid,_ she thinks to herself bitterly. _So stupid. Marius fled after his beloved Cosette. If he does return, to pay his respects, he will be gone again just as soon. He did not care enough about his friends to stay here and fight alongside them. This hollow statue will not keep him here, no more than this worthless, pathetic excuse for a girl. _

She turns back after a few moments of silent despair, her eyes now dull, the knot now a stone weighing down her stomach. "Come, monsieur. If they find you here, they will kill you too."

"My time is long overdue."

His voice is rusty, an orator's silver tongue kept locked away for too long. She isn't sure whether to be surprised or cruelly gratified by the pain which laces every syllable, every consonant. Now that she looks at him more closely, his face is pale and drained, his eyes bloodshot. He looks more like an animated corpse than a Greek god.

"I didn't think defeatism was your way," she says, not even trying to hide her antagonism. "Surely you haven't changed your mind now? Not after all those boys gave their lives for your ideas?"

There is a pause, and for a moment she thinks that he has returned to his superior silences again, but then his mouth opens to speak, the words heavy and cumbersome. "I do not understand. Am I in hell?"

She laughs, a burst of cold mirth that does not even vaguely resemble humour. "Next best thing. You've been spared judgement for a little, monsieur. I'd get to confession if I were you. Your soul isn't as pretty looking as your face, I'll wager."

"Then I am alive?"

"Yes. Not like your friends. Or my brother." Her voice nearly cracks on the word, but she manages to keep herself together.

"My friends…" He frowns slightly. "They weren't my friends."

The ease with which he passes judgement leaves her momentarily dumbstruck with incredulity. It is only the slight tremor in his voice which prevents her from turning around immediately and heading out of the building again to leave him to his fate.

"You dare to talk about them like that?"

"They were my colleagues. We had little in common. They didn't care for me. I didn't care for them." His monotone is unconvincing, but it provokes her nonetheless.

"They gave their lives for the cause of the people! They were young, they had the chance to be happy. They should have taken it, but instead they sat for day after day and listened to you. They loved you, whether you realise it or not, and you… you killed them. You with your fancy words and your great ideas and your total and utter _stupidity_!"

He flinches, and it feels good to get a reaction out of him at last. She's spent so long being unnoticed, being the invisible girl, being the one who actually knew, more than any of these stupidly brave fools, how the people felt, how they were treated, how to get them on the side of the revolution. So she keeps going, the words spilling out of her like boiling water overflowing in a pan, her resentment at having been abandoned by Marius without a second thought, and her fury at the obnoxious heartlessness of this man who led mere boys to their deaths, and her guilt, her heart-wrenching guilt at having survived when her brother had died and having said nothing when those closest to her beloved were in danger, all bubbling over, all steaming out of her, all being aimed in a torrent of emotion at this man who until this point never seemed to have any of his own.

"It wasn't going to work. _I _could have told you that. Anyone could have told you that, but you wouldn't have listened if we had tried. You never listened to anyone. You claimed to care about the people, you claimed to love France with all your heart, but you don't have a heart to care with! You never felt anything for these people who died for you, who gave their lives for you! You knew nothing of the people, you knew _nothing_ of France. You know nothing about love, Monsieur Enjolras, and you never will. You _never_ will."

A sob breaks off her derision, but to her surprise it is not hers. She watches as the marble leader of the revolution melts, his rigidity evaporating into despair. The pen drops from his hand; he buries his face in his palms, his fingers curling into his hair furiously as tears drip from his cheeks onto his open book. She can do nothing but stare at him as he cries, each of his muffled screams of pain cutting deeper into her stone-cold heart, slowly eating away at her rage until there is nothing left but pity.

Some small part of her remembers that this man is no more than a boy himself.

Before she realises it her arms are around him, her face buried in his hair, her own tears spilling out from beneath her tightly closed eyelids. In his desperate sobs she hears the echoes of her brother's laughter, in his whispered pleas for forgiveness she hears memories of Marius's passionate speeches. She holds him the more tightly for it; she cannot begrudge him what she has lost when she did not save them either. Her own guilt runs just as deep as his.

And now she remembers why she saved him, why she had pursued him so desperately. He is the only person left in her broken world who remembers those they have lost. He is the only person left who has any idea of the pain she suffers. He is the only person left.

Time vanishes into the infinity of grief. She doesn't know how long she stays there with him, murmuring empty comfort until his sobs ebb away into silence. By the time he stirs beneath her embrace and she opens her eyes, the first rays of daylight are beginning to flicker into the room.

She draws away from him, and meets his eyes for the first time. His gaze flickers down to the floor almost instantly, whether through force of habit or through shame she does not know. Either way, she gently orders him to look at her, and almost smiles when he obeys. His eyes are wretched with anguish. His heart has broken, a heart he never really knew existed in the first place. However lost she is, he is a thousand times more so because he never realised all that he had to lose.

She reaches down to take his hand. "Come, monsieur," she whispers, drawing back from him and pulling him to his feet. His passivity is another stab at her wounded heart, but she forces herself to lead him back towards the broken staircase. She knows where he can be safe. It is her duty to see him heal, her duty to her brother, her duty to the other boys who fell in this place. She will see him heal and she will stay with him, help him through this world where finding hope is the only hope they have.

She will love him, for the sake of those who are no longer here for them to love.


End file.
